Question: Which of the original twelve disciples was the first to be martyred?
Answer: James. (Acts 12:2)
Comments: Christian tradition asserts that all but one of the original twelve disciples (not counting Judas Iscariot) was martyred, with John surviving into old age. James, son of Zebedee, was the first to be martyred and the only one whose death is described in the New Testament. (Acts 12:1-2)
James was beheaded in 44 CE in Jerusalem at the command of Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (who tried to kill the infant Jesus in Matthew 2). Both Hippolytus (170-236) and Eusebius (263-339), early church historians, corroborate the New Testament witness.
And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword. (Acts 12:2)
Herod, who ordered James' beheading, dies himself later in the same New Testament chapter as his victim (Acts 12:23).
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